Richart, J., Otal, A., Rodriguez, S., Nicolas, A. I., DePiaggio, M., Santos, M., et al. (2015). A practical MRI-based reconstruction method for a new endocavitary and interstitial gynaecological template. J. Contemp. Brachytherapy, 7(5), 407–414.
Abstract: Purpose: There are perineal templates for interstitial implants such as MUPIT and Syed applicators. Their limitations are the intracavitary component deficit and the necessity to use computed tomography (CT) for treatment planning since both applicators are non-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) compatibles. To overcome these problems, a new template named Template Benidorm (TB) has been recently developed. Titanium needles are usually reconstructed based on their own artifacts, mainly in T1-weighted sequence, using the void on the tip as the needle tip position. Nevertheless, patient tissues surrounding the needles present heterogeneities that complicate the accurate identification of these artifact patterns. The purpose of this work is to improve the titanium needle reconstruction uncertainty for the TB case using a simple method based on the free needle lengths and typical MRI pellets markers. Material and methods: The proposed procedure consists on the inclusion of three small A-vitamin pellets (hyper-intense on MRI images) compressed by both applicator plates defining the central plane of the plate's arrangement. The needles used are typically 20 cm in length. For each needle, two points are selected defining the straight line. From such line and the plane equations, the intersection can be obtained, and using the free length (knowing the offset distance), the coordinates of the needle tip can be obtained. The method is applied in both T1W and T2W acquisition sequences. To evaluate the inter-observer variation of the method, three implants of T1W and another three of T2W have been reconstructed by two different medical physicists with experience on these reconstructions. Results and conclusions: The differences observed in the positioning were significantly smaller than 1 mm in all cases. The presented algorithm also allows the use of only T2W sequence either for contouring or reconstruction purposes. The proposed method is robust and independent of the visibility of the artifact at the tip of the needle.
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Granero, D., Candela-Juan, C., Vijande, J., Ballester, F., Perez-Calatayud, J., Jacob, D., et al. (2016). Technical Note: Dosimetry of Leipzig and Valencia applicators without the plastic cap. Med. Phys., 43(5), 2087–4pp.
Abstract: Purpose: High dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy for treatment of small skin lesions using the Leipzig and Valencia applicators is a widely used technique. These applicators are equipped with an attachable plastic cap to be placed during fraction delivery to ensure electronic equilibrium and to prevent secondary electrons from reaching the skin surface. The purpose of this study is to report on the dosimetric impact of the cap being absent during HDR fraction delivery, which has not been explored previously in the literature. Methods: GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations (version 10.0) have been performed for the Leipzig and Valencia applicators with and without the plastic cap. In order to validate the Monte Carlo simulations, experimental measurements using radiochromic films have been done. Results: Dose absorbed within 1 mm of the skin surface increases by a factor of 1500% for the Leipzig applicators and of 180% for the Valencia applicators. Deeper than 1 mm, the overdosage flattens up to a 10% increase. Conclusions: Differences of treating with or without the plastic cap are significant. Users must check always that the plastic cap is in place before any treatment in order to avoid overdosage of the skin. Prior to skin HDR fraction delivery, the timeout checklist should include verification of the cap placement. (C) 2016 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.
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Richard, J. M., Valcarce, A., & Vijande, J. (2017). String dynamics and metastability of all-heavy tetraquarks. Phys. Rev. D, 95(5), 054019–7pp.
Abstract: Multiquark states have been advocated to explain recent experimental data in the heavy-light sector, and there are already speculations about multiquarks containing only heavy quarks and antiquarks. With a rigorous treatment of the four-body problem in current quark models, full-charm (cc (c) over bar(c) over bar) and full-beauty(bb (b) over bar(b) over bar) tetraquarks are found to be unbound. Thus their stability should rely on more subtle effects that are not included in the simple picture of constituent quarks. The case of (bc (b) over bar(c) over bar) might be more favorable if the naive color-additive model of confinement is replaced by a string-inspired interaction.
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Garcilazo, H., Valcarce, A., & Vijande, J. (2017). Stable bound states of N's, Lambda's and Xi's. Rev. Mex. Fis., 63(5), 411–422.
Abstract: We review our recent work about the stability of strange few-body systems containing N's, Lambda's, and Xi's. We make use of local central Yukawa-type Malfliet-Tjon interactions reproducing the low-energy parameters and phase shifts of the nucleon-nucleon system and the latest updates of the hyperon-nucleon and hyperon-hyperon ESCO8c Nijmegen potentials. We solve the three-and four-body bound-state problems by means of Faddeev equations and a generalized Gaussian variational method, respectively. The hypertriton, Lambda np(I)J(P) = (1/2)1/2(+), is bound by 144 keV; the recently discussed Lambda nn (I)J(P) = (1/2)1/2(+) system is unbound, as well as the Lambda Lambda nn (I)J(P) = (1)0(+) system, being just above threshold. Our results indicate that the Xi NN, Xi Xi N and Xi Xi NN systems with maximal isospin might be bound.
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Richard, J. M., Valcarce, A., & Vijande, J. (2021). Effect of relativistic kinematics on the stability of multiquarks. Phys. Rev. D, 103(5), 054020–8pp.
Abstract: We discuss whether the bound nature of multiquark states in quark models could benefit from relativistic effects on the kinetic energy operator. For mesons and baryons, relativistic corrections to the kinetic energy lead to lower energies, and thus call for a retuning of the parameters of the model. For multiquark states, as well as their respective thresholds, a comparison is made of the results obtained with nonrelativistic and relativistic kinetic energy. It is found that the binding energy is lower in the relativistic case. In particular, QQ (q) over bar(q) over bar tetraquarks with double heavy flavor become stable for a larger ratio of the heavy to light quark masses; the all-heavy tetraquarks QQ (Q) over bar(Q) over bar that are not stable in standard nonrelativistic quark models remain unstable when a relativistic form of kinetic energy is adopted.
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